The Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) notes with great concern and alarm the implementation of the Executive Order titled “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” signed by President Trump on Friday, January 27, 2017. The order effectively limits or bans immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

At the most basic level, this Executive Order constitutes an attack on democratic American values of diversity, inclusion, and non-discrimination on the basis of national origin and ethnicity. By refusing to grant refuge to citizens from the above countries, it imposes hardship on some of the most vulnerable and persecuted populations of the world — people who had placed their trust in the ultimate justice of the Constitution of the United States and in the American government that is required to uphold it. As a nation of immigrants who have themselves benefited from American hospitality, we must not forget the perils faced by earlier generations of Americans, and we must continue the American tradition of providing safe haven to those who, like earlier immigrants, are fleeing from terror and persecution.

The ban also represents an unfortunate capitulation to religious bigotry, seeking as it does to single out Muslims for discriminatory treatment. This is a fundamental violation of our national commitment to uphold religious freedom and equality and to refrain from religious and ethnic profiling that erodes the dignity of human beings.

Finally, this Executive Order threatens the national security of the United States insofar as this ban will be interpreted by militant groups as an attack upon Islam itself and deployed as a tool of recruitment into their ranks.

As an organization that has consistently taken a stand against the violation of fundamental human, political, and religious rights wherever they may occur, the Board of Directors of CSID takes this opportunity to express its condemnation of this Executive Order and to call for its swift withdrawal. Such a measure would restore the world’s confidence in the fairness of the American government and its faith in the compassion of the American people for those less fortunate.

About CSID

The Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy (CSID) is a non-profit organization, based in Washington DC, dedicated to studying Islamic and democratic political thought and merging them into a modern Islamic democratic discourse. more details